Summary: 'Lifting his eyes up to the mirror before him, he allowed himself to see what he had been avoiding in his reflection for the past few weeks. A child of the Abbey. A child of fear. A child Kai had forgotten existed. Until now.' In the weeks following the World Championships in Moscow and the return of his memory, Kai is left with the impossible task of sorting through what his memories are, and what are only nightmares. Who will help him piece his mind together?

A/N: I would like to say a massive, huge, big, fat, sloppy thank-you with hugs and kisses and cherries on top for everyone who's supported my writing, stuck around for updates, put up with my terrible procrastinating. You're all amazing. Thanks to the reviewers of the last chapter, some stuff, Rangerapprentice, One Riddle, Kiray Himawari, guest, akin-'to38, Sprintingfever, Desastrus and Zombii Requiem. Holy shit I love you guys, and I'm such an ass for not replying to your reviews on a regular basis (or at all).


Hard.

Kai dropped the spoon into the bowl and finished chewing his mouthful, frowning, not entirely certain why the sight of Bryan's name on his screen tugged at some knots in his stomach. Suddenly, he wasn't all too eager to read the message, and thought it might have something to do with the fact that the grey eyed Russian was most probably sitting in front of his keyboard at this exact moment too.

The dream was still fresh in Kai's mind – and the determined, hateful look in Bryan's grey eyes not yet forgotten.

It had taken Kai slightly by surprise that Bryan would even bother to reply at all. Out of all the Demolition Boys, he was the one that seemed to care the least about – well, just about anything. That he would even answer a cry for help unsettled Kai somewhat. It wasn't normal… was it?

Then again, Kai didn't know what his 'normal' was. He thought he did, but then everything got turned on its head at the World Championships. That's what he was doing here now, trying to put everything back in its place. Maybe he was wrong about Bryan. Maybe, below the rough exterior, the grey-eyed teen was actually quite a kind-hearted, soft-spoken individual.

Then the bizarre image of Bryan as some kind of agony-aunt figure wearing thick-rimmed glasses burst into his mind. He was sitting on a plump, burgundy, velvet couch and nodding sympathetically over his clipboard. Kai snorted into his bowl of cereal.

No... who was Kai trying to kid? Bryan was an asshole, everyone knew that. That lavender-grey haired blader from Moscow a couple months back, brooding around the place like a black cloud and swinging his bulky arms about, tearing shreds out of Rei simply because that's how he played the game… that was Bryan. Even now, after that dream, Kai was recalling small flashes of the Bryan he knew at the Abbey – his ever-present scowl, his perfect aura of get-the-fuck-away-from-me. He was forever brawling in the corridors of the Abbey.

Why was Kai asking for his help again?

Shaking his head scoldingly at himself and folding his hand over the mouse, Kai moved the cursor up the screen and clicked on the message, not really expecting much.

From: Bryan Kuznetsov
Subject: ...Dreaming?
Date: 10 November, 00:17 GMT -5
To: Kai Hiwatari

I must be.

The Great Kai Hiwatari, asking me for help?

– – – – – – –

Kai stared blankly at the screen. Then his eyes narrowed – but whether it was in confusion or irritation, he wasn't sure. Since when did Bryan Kuznetsov have a sense of humour? Since when did he have a sense of anything but cruelty?

This was… not what he was expecting.

Raising a pissed off eyebrow and muttering under his breath, Kai irritatedly placed his bowl of cereals on the side of the desk and brought his fingers to the keyboard. So Bryan thought he could scoff at his request for help? Not a chance. Kai would not let a second member of the Demolition Boys get one up on him.

Smirking, Kai leant back in his seat to admire his reply and then hit send with a distinct air of superior nonchalance that was, really, for nobody's benefit but his own.

From: Kai Hiwatari
Subject: ...Joking?
Date: 10 November, 13:20 GMT +9
To: Bryan Kuznetsov

Fancy yourself as a comedian, Bryan? If by some miracle you've managed to find a minimum wage day job, do the world a favour – don't quit it.

– – – – – – –

From: Bryan Kuznetsov
Subject: Re: ...Joking?
Date: 10 November, 00:22 GMT -5
To: Kai Hiwatari

Funny. Looks to me like the only one busting out the jokes is you, Hiwatari.

Asking me for help?

– – – – – – –

From: Kai Hiwatari
Subject: Re: re: …Joking?
Date: 10 November, 13:26 GMT +9
To: Bryan Kusnetsov

Do you want grow to the fuck up and just answer my question.

– – – – – – –

From: Bryan Kuznetsov
Subject: Manners, Kai.
Date: 10 November, 00:29 GMT -5
To: Kai Hiwatari

Give me a please, and I'll think about it.

– – – – – – –

What?

Kai sat back in his chair and, the minute he realized the disbelieving look on his face, wiped it off with an almost equally disbelieving laugh. Bryan couldn't be serious. Kai snatched his bowl of cereal back off the desk and began heaping spoons into his mouth with unnecessary venom, ignoring the fact that he probably looked a lot like Tyson right now.

Bryan was laughing at him!

"No. No, you've got to be kidding me…" Kai muttered as he waved his spoon around airily in the air. He decided to just get up off the chair and walk away from the computer. There wasn't any point in giving the screen his first-class evil glare, since Bryan could hardly see it anyway. First Tala had gotten under his skin after bitching him out yesterday, and now Bryan with his little – what the fuck was that anyway? Teasing him?

Well... Bryan was the kind to play with his food, Kai supposed.

Kai strode into the kitchen and deposited the now-empty bowl a little too roughly in the sink, and ran cold water out of the faucet so it was at least rinsed a little. But that was pretty much the extent of his housekeeping.

What was he thinking?

He should have known that he'd get no help from the Demolition Boys. They'd all been raised in the Abbey, after all, and didn't have the luxury of forgetting it like he had. Whatever values Boris tried to drill into his soldiers, they all had it firmly engraved into their skulls. They weren't taught to know sympathy or to lend a hand to those in need. Life was simply survival of the fittest.

Whatever. Kai would survive this on his own, then. He was strong enough.

And then Kai demonstrated that strength perfectly by just about jumping right out of his skin when the apartment's intercom buzzed sharply. On his way over to the hall to answer it, he justified this by the fact that the intercom just didn't buzz all that often. Only three times since he'd been living here, in fact. It's not like he had visitors or anything.

"What?" Kai asked as he punched the little button, not bothering to hide the tetchiness of his tone. He was pissed off already and didn't appreciate how insistent the person on the other end of the line was. The second buzz he could let slide, but the third, fourth, and eighth – no, they weren't necessary at all. If they weren't careful, Kai would probably exploit whatever authority his name and riches gave him, and see to their dismissal personally.

"Good afternoon, Hiwatari-sama," said a young, female voice that Kai couldn't place. "Kato-san is here for you now."

Kai blinked. "What?" he echoed, a little dumbly this time. Why was his chauffeur ready for him? He wasn't going anywhere.

"Your – your driver, Kato-san," she replied, now with a touch of hesitancy. "For your two-thirty appointment?"

"My two thirty… but I didn't – oh," Kai said, his irritation with the girl at the reception evaporating, and replaced by an unwelcome jump in his stomach as he remembered. His eyes flicked sidewards towards the clock on the wall. Almost twenty-to-two. "Shit. Two minutes," he huffed, before buzzing himself out and stalking cloudily to his bedroom.

For some reason that he could not recall, he'd agreed to meet with his grandfather before the trial that was due to begin next week. Business was, at the time, the reason he'd given himself. But there was nothing concerning Hiwatari Enterprises that couldn't be handled by his very expensive team of lawyers.

Glancing at himself as he passed the mirror in his bedroom, he rolled crimson eyes at his bed hair again and rued the thought of appearing before his grandfather in such a state of… unkemptness. Pride would not allow him to look as though he couldn't cope.

Fifteen minutes later and he stepped past Kato into the back of the sleek black car, dressed, refreshed, hair still slightly damp, but now much tamer. It would dry out on the way.

Taking a slow, deep breath, Kai pushed all thoughts of Bryan, Tala and his returning memories firmly to the back of his mind, and focused directly on the task at hand.

– – – – – – – – – – – – –

White.

There was too much of it. All four of the walls, the floor, the ceiling. The table and two chairs were the only objects in the room to break the complete absence of colour, though – they were metallic. Sharp, clean, and sterile.

He didn't think there would ever be another colour he'd despise more than grey, Kai thought as he stepped into the small, square room. All of his ghosts from the Abbey were grey. But even he was wiling to admit that he'd probably prefer that comatose hue over all of this white. White was open and pure and in this room it was very misleading. There were too many secrets here. There ought to have been shadows where they could hide.

"We'll be right outside," said one of the two prison guards from behind him. Kai gave them a vague, acknowledging nod, but didn't look their way. His eyes were fixed on the only other man in the room, standing there on the opposite side of the table beside what Kai assumed was his chair for this conversation. He was regarding Kai under a cool, grey gaze and although he no longer wore that expression of smug cruelty, his face had lost none of its former superiority and arrogance. His grandfather.

"Hello, Kai."

Kai scowled. That same, condescending tone as ever, too.

"Why don't you take a seat," he said, gesturing airily to the other chair, nearest to Kai. It wasn't a question.

"No thanks," Kai replied scathingly, sticking his hands into his pockets and breaking the eye contact. He began to step away from the door and moved over to the side wall, the one with the one-way glass in it. He turned and leant his weight back against it with significant nonchalance. "I don't plan on staying long."

Voltaire Hiwatari brushed off Kai's tone as easily as if he were brushing off the trivial moods of a toddler. He shifted his weight from foot to foot for the briefest moments, before turning to stand behind his chair and place his hands on the cool, metallic back of it. Neither of them spoke.

Kai, despite his best efforts, found himself surveying his grandfather not out of concern, but out of a vague, listless curiosity. This man, the only family left to him who, for everything Kai knew about him, still knew him no better than a stranger. Voltaire wore the regulation grey prison uniform with an unmistakable air of regality that Kai wasn't sure what to make of. Bruises and scrapes, evidence of the prison's interrogation techniques of questionable legality, lighted his face and brow but for all the attention Voltaire paid them they may well just have been a trick of the light. And that was fine, for Kai wasn't prepared to feel sympathy for any small injustices paid to this man.

"What are you doing here, Kai?"

Kai blinked and frowned, wondering if this was supposed to be a trick question or not. "Because you requested it," he replied shortly. "And because I decided to come."

Voltaire's mouth twisted into what Kai could only assume was supposed to be smile. He saw nothing but a mocking sneer. "I suppose you have a few… questions to ask of me," Voltaire resumed after a few moment's silence. He backed away from the chair and began to pace around the small room, folding his hands behind his back. Kai maintained his closed off stance against the one-way glass wall, and wondered vaguely why his grandfather wasn't chained to something. This was one of Japan's highest security detention centers. The more he thought of it, the more Kai realized how bizarre it was that he should be able to meet his grandfather at all. He was no two-bit criminal.

"Questions," Kai repeated, "to ask you you?"

It was true, he was looking for answers. But as Kai looked into the unchanging grey eyes of his grandfather, he realized that he'd never find them here. And then he laughed. It was a hollow and bitter sound that echoed and bounced off the walls, filling the small, enclosed white space with the thundering sound of emptiness.

"You're the man who knew nothing but his own pride and greed and took it for invincibility. Who plotted for years to steal away what wasn't his to take. Who left a toddler without his family and sent him away to that godforsaken Abbey. Who used and manipulated him for his own selfish plans – his own grandson," Kai spat. "You're a liar, a thief, a murderer and a fool. I already know everything I need to know."

There were a few hard, silent moments during which the two males in the room glared at each other, crimson warring with grey. To anyone on the outside, it would have looked as though a thousand unspoken things were being said. The only thing Kai would have wanted to know is 'why,' but he doubted he would be any better off for knowing the answer.

"The world isn't black and white, Kai," was all Voltaire said in that same, condescending tone, what seems like hours later.

"No," Kai replied, pushing back off the wall and turning towards the door. He finally decided he'd had enough of this man and his taunts. Of course the world wasn't black and white. It was full of white-lies, half-truths, secrets. "It's grey," he said.

His grandfather laughed. "As obstinate as always."

"Apparently. I learnt by example."

"And so happy to play the victim, too."

"Tell me," Kai said through gritted teeth, that last comment having caused something to snap in him. Kai wasn't so pathetic as to play the victim. Was he not trying step-up and piece back together what little he knew of his own life. Suddenly, he just wanted to hurt his grandfather in any way he could. "What is it like," he began, turning to look Voltaire straight in the eyes, "knowing you're a dead man?"

Voltaire didn't even flinch. "What is it like knowing that you speak to one?"

Kai considered this for a moment. He didn't feel anger, anxiety, loss. He didn't even feel an ounce of discomfort. There was nothing. In this white space where there was nowhere to hide, Kai discovered that he was disarmingly at ease, speaking to this man who, soon, would cease to exist. He didn't care in the slightest.

Was he that… hard?

When he looked up again, he found that Voltaire was speaking again. "You see, we're not that different, you and I."

Kai swallowed the horror that statement instilled in him, and only remained in the room long enough to fuel all the hatred he'd ever harbored against his grandfather into one, unbroken, hard glare. "We are nothing alike," he growled, before wrenching the door open and striding out of the room.

It wasn't until he'd exited the building and fallen back into the sleek, black car that he realized his hands were shaking. He balled them into fists and folded his arms around his body, hiding them. The purr of the engine breathed life into the car and as they drove back to his apartment, Kai caught flashes and glimpses of his hard-faced reflection in the car window.

"Nothing alike…" he whispered.


A/N: Aha, yeaaah. I hadn't planned for Voltaire to show up again at all, besides his little cameo appearance in the first chapter. I don't even know what happened here. But yeah, here's Kai taking one step forward and two steps back? I hope not, I want to make progress with him, dammit!

If it seems like you get whiplash reading this, or like it doesn't quite flow... that's because it doesn't. xD Literally, I had the first half of this (Kai and Bryan) written out like two months ago. This Voltaire stuff happened yesterday and today. So please excuse that. :3

Ah well. You know, all I wanna know is if Bryan will actually get that please out of Kai. The only please I ever imagine Kai giving is the, 'Bitch, please' kind. XD